‘The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.’
Those ominous words, spoken by Albert Einstein in the wake of World War II, remain distressingly pertinent today.
Despite the end of the Cold War, we still live under the dark shadow of some 16,300 nuclear weapons, 1,800 of them on high alert.
Climate scientists now predict that even a so-called ‘limited’ nuclear war would put up to two billion people at risk of famine from an unnaturally prolonged winter.
Each is capable of levelling a city in a flash, killing hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of innocent people. Each is designed to destroy indiscriminately on a vast scale, leaving a toxic radioactive legacy for decades.
Collectively, nuclear weapons pose the greatest immediate threat to the health and welfare of humankind and the future of the planet. Such was the conclusion of the world’s leading medical authority, the World Health Organization.
As Einstein understood well—even at the very dawn of the atomic age—nuclear weapons could one day bring about an end to civilisation. Initially, fearing that the Nazis would be the first to unleash the destructive power of the atom, Einstein wrote to US president Roosevelt in 1939 encouraging him to pursue an atom bomb. This decision he later regretted profoundly. Appalled by the horror wrought upon the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—almost all of whom were civilians—he joined forces with other scientific luminaries of his time to issue this urgent plea to humanity:
There lies before us, if we choose, continued progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom.
Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?
We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
This message is at the heart of recent global efforts to outlaw and eliminate nuclear weapons. Forget about our differences; forget about old and current rivalries. Focus instead on what these horrible weapons do to people and the environment, for this is all that truly matters.
Last March, 128 governments gathered in Oslo for the first-ever inter-governmental conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. It is remarkable that no such conference had ever before taken place in the nearly seven-decade-long history of the atomic era.
That nuclear weapons have catastrophic humanitarian consequences is obvious. However, until recently, the international community failed to grasp the full destructive potential of nuclear weapons on cities, global climate, agriculture, migration and the economy.
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In Oslo, these links were described in frightening detail, and one government after another concluded that the prevention of nuclear war is our only option, for there can be no cure.
The international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement made clear that it would be powerless to respond in the event of a nuclear attack anywhere, on any scale. United Nations agencies warned that nuclear detonations would lead to millions of refugees, widespread agricultural collapse from lack of sunlight and rainfall.
Climate scientists now predict that even a so-called ‘limited’ nuclear war would put up to two billion people at risk of famine from an unnaturally prolonged winter.
A war fought using five per cent of all nuclear weapons in the world today would render the planet completely and permanently uninhabitable.
The Oslo conference was an urgent wake-up call to humanity.
This February in Mexico, 146 governments participated in a second conference to build the scientific evidence base for eliminating nuclear weapons. Security experts warned of the astonishing vulnerability of nuclear weapons to human error.
Of course, the deliberate deployment of nuclear weapons is also possible. In October 1962, the Cuban Missile crisis brought the US and Soviet Union terrifyingly close to all out nuclear war. Most observers agree that deliberate use of nuclear weapons would only occur given misinformation, miscalculation, or mental derangement. Sadly these conditions do happen.
The chair of the conference in Mexico concluded that the time has come to negotiate a treaty to ban the use, production, deployment and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. The momentum towards such a treaty is building rapidly. However, the treaty remains controversial, despite the fact that both other types of WMD—biological and chemical weapons—have long been prohibited. Even some so-called ‘conventional’ weapons, including anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, have been totally banned.
A small number of nations maintain that nuclear weapons are legitimate instruments of war; that, in extreme circumstances, it would be justifiable to use such weapons to extinguish hundreds of thousands of lives for military gain. This is lunacy on the grandest scale.
The leaders of nuclear-armed nations argue that they, unlike others, are responsible and can be trusted to wield these weapons. But who is to decide if one is trustworthy or not? How can a country such as the United States, which clings firmly to an arsenal of several thousand nuclear weapons, expect to persuade others, such as North Korea or Iran, to abandon their nuclear ambitions?
In reality, any state that possesses nuclear weapons is a rogue state, but we rarely use that label even-handedly. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it last January: ‘There are no right hands for wrong weapons.’
This principle also applies to countries like Australia.
Although Australia is part of a declared nuclear-weapon-free zone, our government claims a security benefit from US nuclear weapons. The theory goes that should we ever be threatened with nuclear attack, the United States would supposedly use its nuclear forces to obliterate the potential attacker. Not only is this far-fetched, it is also morally repugnant. It sends a message to other nations, including potential proliferators, that nuclear weapons are useful, desirable and necessary for security.
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To their great shame, both major political parties in Australia support this military doctrine. Consequently, they have resisted international moves to negotiate a global ban on nuclear weapons. Yet the public overwhelmingly supports such a treaty. A Nielsen poll this April showed that 84 per cent of Australians want the government to engage constructively in the negotiating process. More than 800 recipients of the Order of Australia have endorsed an appeal urging the government to adopt a nuclear-free defence posture and promote a ban. Among the signatories are four past prime ministers, three governors-general, High Court justices and four previous chiefs of the armed forces, as well as some of the nation’s most celebrated authors, artists, scientists and sporting legends.
It is time for the Australian government to stand on the right side of history.
This December, Australia will attend the third international conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, to be held in Vienna. This promises to be another important milestone on the path towards a nuclear weapons ban.
Of course, no one is under the illusion that the negotiation of a ban will be easy or lead immediately to a nuclear-weapon-free world. Indeed, in all likelihood, most nuclear-armed states—perhaps all of them—will refuse to engage in the process.
Even so, a ban would fundamentally change the state of play. Countries in ambiguous positions like Australia would be forced to choose: are they for nuclear weapons, or against? European nations that host US nuclear weapons on their soil would be under intense pressure to end the practice. Financial institutions would be compelled to divest from companies that manufacture nuclear weapons. In the nuclear-armed states, governments would find it increasingly difficult to pursue programmes to modernise and upgrade their arsenals. For these reasons, a ban treaty is the next vital step.
Bringing such a treaty into force is well within our grasp, for its success depends not on the will of the nuclear-armed, but of the nuclear-free. Australia could play an important leadership role in this respect.
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The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which originated in Melbourne seven years ago, has been instrumental in putting a nuclear weapons ban firmly on the global political agenda.
We hope to replicate the extraordinary success of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which in a few short years managed to galvanise global support for a mine ban treaty. Since that treaty came into force in 1999, there has been a 60 per cent decline in landmine-related injuries and fatalities. The manufacture and use of landmines has almost completely stopped. This was achieved despite initial scepticism from governments. Jody Williams, who spearheaded that campaign and won a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts, is dismissive of those who now tell us that a ban on nuclear weapons is unrealistic and premature.
ICAN has attracted the support of prominent individuals including Secretary General of the UN Ban ki-Moon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Yoko Ono and Martin Sheen, and has been embraced by thousands of ordinary people around the world who believe in the necessity, urgency and feasibility of a nuclear-free future.
To avert the unparalleled nuclear catastrophe of which Einstein warned, we must change our ‘mode of thinking’.
Nuclear weapons are not a scientific triumph. Nor are they a source of prestige in international affairs, rather they are a manifestation of the very worst aspects of human nature.
There are no scientific barriers to eliminating nuclear weapons, only political barriers, and those barriers are starting to crumble, as we saw in Oslo and Mexico
Now, with a nuclear weapons ban on the horizon, there is a historic window of opportunity for all of us to amplify our call for a nuclear-weapons-free world—and to hold our governments to account to ensure that they deliver this to us.
Ockham’s Razor is a soap box for all things scientific, with short talks about research, industry and policy from people with something thoughtful to say about science.